Advocatetanmoy Law Library

India is as much a Hindu nation as England and America are Christian nations

India that is Bharat

A wrong argument: That by virtue of its majority being the deciding factor in a democracy, India is a Hindu nation.

The correction[Mimamsa]: We the people of India have descended from a common Hindu patriarchy and then we adopted multiple ways of prayer system for our salvation and peace. For the administration and management of the wealth pertain the Hindu Rastra(Nation), we commissioned a set of secular rule and judicial system in the country.

For the political unity and emancipation, we adopted from the west the pattern of parliament for Indian State headed by an elected President, to be advised by Prime minister- in- cabinet.

The soul of Nationhood [ Bidhi Bakyam]: We worship Mother India(Bharat Mata) by chanting Vande Mataram and establish equity and justice through Satameva Jayate [ सत्यमेव जयते in Deva Nagari script, taken from Mundaka Upanishad ].

It is said [Salpa vistaram]

“Even a cursory perusal of our history shows that, since times immemorial, Hindus have grown up as the true children of this soil. To them, it is more than a motherland, a holy land. Generation after generation, the flower of their heroic manhood have offered their life-blood in defence of her freedom. They have held aloft the banner of her sacred religion and culture.

They wrote her holy books, the Ramayana and the Maha Bharata, the Gita and the Vedas. They produced great saints and rishis who set up the highest standards in each and every walk of national life. Therefore, without a shadow of doubt, Hindus are the real builders of the national life of this land, its real nationals. In a nutshell, this is Hindu nation.”

Again it can be argued [Purba Pakshya]

Constitution of India does not recognize any form of nationalism that there should not be any Hindu nation, Muslim nation, Sikh nation, Buddhist nation or Christian nation. These expressions or thoughts are antithesis and abhorrent to the Constitution of India. The Constitution, as already stated, has created one nation called India. In our constitutional philosophy, there is only one ism that is Indianism. All other isms are sworn enemies of Indianism. Any person claiming to be Hindu nationalist, Muslim nationalist, Sikh nationalist, Buddhist nationalist or Christian nationalist is not only working against the Indianism but against the very though of India. In India, there can be forces, which can be bracketed into two groups only, Indians, who are for India and communals/extremists, who are enemies of India. If India, which is created by its Constitution, which we the people have given to ourselves, has to survive, then it is only Indianism, which has to be there and all other isms have to disappear from the firmament of the country called India.

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Law settled by Supreme Court of India:

It will be seen from the following decisions that it has been consistently laid down by the Supreme Court in a number of cases that burden of proof resting on a person seeking a declaration of voidness of election is very heavy in the sense that he is required to prove every charge of corrupt practice beyond reasonable doubt. In other words, the burden to be discharged by the petitioner in a case is the same as the burden on the prosecution to prove a criminal charge.

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Where a law purports to authorise imposition of restrictions on a fundamental right of language wide enough to cover restrictions both within and without the limits of constitutionality

Constitutional Mechanism

The Constitution of India contains no express declaration in favour of the freedom or liberty of the press, and the reason or one of the reasons for this omission may, I imagine, be that in no period in history and in no country in the world has the press been free, in the sense that the keeper of a press may print and publish any matter he chooses without thereby incurring any risk of punishment. The invention of printing led to the propagation and dissemination, on a far wider scale than had hitherto been possible, of ideas which were subversive of the existing order in Church and State. In 1501 Pope Alexander VI published a bill against unlicensed printing. After the Reformation and the break up of the Holy Roman Empire, the sovereigns of the national states which came into existence, took similar steps to control the press. In England, until 1695 no book or pamphlet could be printed without the imprimatur of the Crown licensor, and the printers and authors of books or pamphlets, which had been issued without it, were liable to be brought before special Court such as the Star Chamber, and most severely punished. Although in 1695, when the House of Commons declined to continue the Licensing Act, the press in England was emancipated from direct state control, in other countries on the Continent of Europe a system of pre-censorship continued until long afterward. In 20th century Europe, in more than one country, the press, on its political side at least, has again been subjected to strict Government control. In Fascist Italy, the responsible editor of every newspaper had to be approved by the prefect of the province. A prefect might warn a newspaper editor who published matter or news to which he took exception and might revoke his recognition of an editor who had been so warned twice in a year. In Soviet Russia, there is no independent press, and any person venturing to propagate ideas, which are, in any way, inconsistent with the communist creed, are liable to the most severe punishment. When we speak of the freedom or liberty of the press, we mean that freedom no doubt a very substantial freedom but nevertheless, a freedom which is definitely limited and circumscribed which is enjoyed by the press in the English speaking world.

In 1784 in the celebrated case of Rex v. Dean of St. Asaph (1784) 3 C T. R. 431 Lord Mansfield said:

The liberty of the press consists in printing without any previous license subject to the consequences of the law.

Now, in England and in America, it is a crime to print and publish matter of certain kinds. It is obvious that the existence of such laws and the consequent dread of punishment must act as a deterrent on persons, who hold certain ideas or opinions, seeking to propagate and disseminate them. Moreover under the law of libel, including the law of seditious libel, not merely is the author of the libel responsible. Responsibility also extends to the publisher and printer and, indeed to every vendor of the publication. As ordinarily, a writer must find a publisher, the publisher must employ a printer, and the printer, in his turn must rely on booksellers to sell the book or pamphlet which he prints, it is clear that the possibility of a writer succeeding in communicating to any large body of the public ideas or opinions the dissemination of which the law regards as culpable is small.

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